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Well, it's not here just yet but it's the one that normally generates most chatter so yeah, might as well get in nice & early before the shitstorm of bickering begins.

Anyone wanna offer up predictions on tracks/albums? While the streamlining of content w/advertising means the lists are fairly representative of the scores awarded, there are usually a few curveballs - James Blake's three EPs in 2010 merging for a top 10 place, Destroyer landing #2 spot last year and so forth. There are certain patterns that emerge and it makes the whole thing far, FAR more predictable than DiS, for example, but every year there are a handful of surprises.

Pyramids looks likely for no.1 although one really notable trend is that the consensus 'best' track from whatever ends up as AOTY usually gets no.2. Case in point: White Winter Hymnal, Runaway, Holocene etc. but I can't see what else would be getting the nod?

last year I think 6 or 7 BNM'ed records went AWOL from both the main list and Honorable Mentions. I recall Smith Westerns, A$AP Rocky, The Antlers and Washed Out all getting the shaft, none of which I would have expected at all. wonder who it might be this year?

having quickly scanned over their little collection of all the Best New Music albums, I'm gonna have a stab at Dum Dum Girls, Passion Pit, Wild Nothing and Frankie Rose for those that get unceremoniously dumped from view

but this year more than any has seen 50-21 filled with non-BNM albums: Action Bronson, Sharon Van Etten, Peaking Lights, Future, Cat Power, even Rustie's Essential Mix (?!) plus a few others

given that TNGHT and Dum Dum Girls got in with EPs I assume 'Kindred' will, and that all the other records on that early prediction are a lock (*maybe* not Twin Shadow but I'm pretty certain), that means there's one slot open to be contested by quite a lot of big BNM'ed names. Bat For Lashes, Perfume Genius, Wild Nothing, Converge, Jessie Ware, Passion Pit, Nas, Baroness, Mount Eerie and The Shins

Think they're suffering a bit of an identity crisis now, a kind of 'jack of all trades, master of none' publication. Where they used to be excellent at spotting indie records & trends, we get the bizarre top 10 inclusion of Beach House & Grizzly Bear albums that are perfectly decent, but would struggle to get anyone particularly excited.

Guess it doesn't help that it wasn't a particularly strong year for indie rock... Nice to see Fiona Apple high, and Kendrick pip Frank O's more patchy effort to the top.

Part of me also thought they'd merge Kindred with Truant/Rough Sleeper to seem really 'current' but in the end I'm glad they didn't as they deserve to stand separately. God, Burial's had an amazing year with those 5 songs.

not as much of a gold mine as in previous years, but then they only show the top tens now.

<3 Andy Beta, though.

nice pick of the otherwise scandalously overlooked Mirroring in Mark Richardson's tracks. also love him and Brandon Stosuy for putting 'Set it Right' by HTDW in their track top tens.

I was going to lay in to newer writers for ruining the charts, but it's actually the old guard who have the most homogenous individual charts. obviously Schreiber's chart is pretty axiomatic. Frank Ocean at number one in both of his, though. hahaha.

I do miss the old P4K, though. before RS left the dirty work to his underlings.